1. Technical Field
Various embodiments of the present invention(s) relate to systems and methods for betting pools associated with a series of real-life events, such as sports matches.
2. Description of Related Art
Betting pools are common in modern society and are often established in connection with popular sporting championships (e.g., NCAA March Madness, FIFA World Cup, NFL Super Bowl, etc.) and fantasy sports. Such pools are generally established between friends, families, and coworkers (e.g., office pools) and require the participants of the betting pool to pay a fee to enter the pool. The collected entry fee usually serves as prize money for the betting pool winner or winners (e.g., 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners). In this way, betting pools can incentivize public interest in following real-world and fantasy sporting activities.
With particular regard to fantasy sports and fantasy sports leagues, the use of a betting pool can encourage fantasy league participants to actively participate during a fantasy league season by providing the fantasy league participants with a chance to win some or all of money placed in the betting pool (e.g., money placed in the betting pool by each fantasy team owner as a fantasy league entry fee).
Generally, a fantasy sports league (hereafter, fantasy league) is established in connection with a particular real-world professional sports league (e.g., in the U.S. National Football League, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer), and participants in the fantasy league act as owners a fantasy sports team (hereafter, a fantasy team) that create and manage within the fantasy league. Each fantasy team is composed of real-world players, which are selected by the fantasy team owner from the real-world professional sports league, often regardless of their real-world team affiliations. Generally, the fantasy league season lasts for the length of the regular season of the real-world professional sports league to which it is associated. During the fantasy league season, the performance of the fantasy team is determined by the real-world performance (e.g., statistical performance, points scored, etc.) of the real-world players on the fantasy team. Since real-world performance of an individual real-world player corresponds to player activity during real-world sports matches, during the fantasy league season, fantasy team owners actively manage their respective fantasy team rosters to maximize the performance their respective fantasy teams derive from the real-world sports matches that occur during the real-world regular sports season. At the end of the fantasy league season, the fantasy teams may be ranked (e.g., based on their respective overall performance) and one or more fantasy team owners may be declared winners of the league. Where there is a betting pool involved, the one or more winners of fantasy league may receive prize money from the betting pool.
Unfortunately, traditionally formatted fantasy sports leagues provide little or no opportunity for low-performing fantasy league participants to improve their overall standing once their fantasy team has fallen behind. It is common for fantasy league participants that are not performing too well during a fantasy sports season to lose interest as the fantasy league season progresses. Often, this leads to low-performing fantasy league participants reducing or ceasing their participation in the fantasy league's activities for the remainder of the fantasy league season.